Saudi Arabia is set to host in March its first
ever Arab Fashion Week, the Arab Fashion Council announced Monday,
overturning
decades of draconian policies on arts and entertainment.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the powerful heir to the Saudi
throne,
has been leading a drive to reform the country's dependence on oil,
including
expanding the private sector and empowering women.
The Dubai-based Arab Fashion Council said on its website that fashion
week
would be held in Riyadh from March 26 to March 31, with a second edition
already scheduled for October.
Arab Fashion Week will take place at Riyadh's eco-friendly Apex Centre, a
white honeycomb-like venue designed by the late celebrated Iraqi-British
architect Zaha Hadid.

In December, the Arab Fashion Council announced the opening of a
regional
office in Riyadh and named Saudi Princess Noura Bint Faisal Al-Saud as its
honorary president.
"The first Arab Fashion Week in Riyadh will be more than a world-class
event, it is a catalyst through which we believe the fashion sector will
lead
other economic sectors such as tourism, hospitality, travel, and trade,"
Princess Noura said in a statement on the council's website.
Listed as an international fashion week alongside Paris and Milan, the
twice-yearly Arab Fashion Week offers exclusively see-now-buy-now
collections
and pre-collections.

The line-up for the Riyadh event has not been revealed yet and it
remains
unclear whether it will limited to modest designs in accordance with the
strict dress code observed in Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf kingdom, which has some of the world's tightest restrictions on
women, requires them to wear, by law, a loose-fitting abaya robe to shroud
their bodies in public.
Earlier this month, a senior Saudi cleric said Saudi women should not be
"forced to wear abayas".
The comment was made by Sheikh Abdullah al-Mutlak, a member of the
Council
of Scholars -- the kingdom's highest religious body.

The government has not said whether it will change the law.
But Prince Mohammed has introduced over the past months a series of
reforms
in favour of women.
In January, Saudi women were allowed for the first time ever to enter a
football stadium to watch a game and the kingdom is also opening several
sectors of the workplace to women.
Saudi Arabia has also announced an end to a longstanding ban on women
driving, which is to take effect in June.
In the past, Arab Fashion Week have been hosted so far exclusively by
Gulf
fashion capital Dubai and have included runway darlings Marchesa and Tony
Ward.
Dubai will continue to host its own parallel Arab Fashion Week, with the
sixth edition slotted for May 9 to May 12. (AFP)